While most of America teeters on the verge of a recession, farmers who receive subsidies for growing commodity crops such as corn, cotton, rice, soy and wheat are in the midst of a record boom. Unfortunately, record high prices and farm incomes don't seem to be making it any easier for Congress to pass a farm bill. The versions of the farm bill both the House and the Senate passed last year failed to reduce subsidies that go only to the minority of farmers who grow commodities. Instead, both bills relied on tax increases to offset new spending. Objecting to the tax provisions and the fact that neither bill included meaningful reform of the nation's antiquated farm policies, President Bush threatened a veto. For more than two months, lawmakers have tried futilely to untangle the gridlock.

At the heart of Congress' self-imposed logjam is an ill-advised provision of the Senate farm bill called the Agricultural Disaster Relief Trust Fund. At first blush, it's hard to object to anything called "disaster relief." Images of sudden and unexpected calamities, such as floods, earthquakes and tornadoes, quickly come to mind, along with sympathy for the victims. In reality, this "permanent disaster" fund is nothing more than a vehicle for adding $5.1 billion in new farm subsidies to an already lopsided and bloated subsidy system in which more than half of the economic benefits flow to farmers in just seven states.

If Congress wants to avoid a veto of the farm bill, then it must find a way to pay for new spending in the bill on food stamps, conservation, renewable energy and other programs important to California without raising taxes. This goal is hard enough to achieve without adding another $5.1 billion subsidy program to the pot. Unfortunately, the Senate has refused to budge, insisting that farmers need a permanent disaster fund.

In fact, only a fraction of the nation's farmers stand to benefit from this fund. Close inspection of ad hoc disaster payments to farmers over the past two decades reveals that between 1985 and 2005, five Great Plains states - Texas, North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota and Kansas - received nearly 40 percent of total disaster spending, according to USDA data compiled by the Environmental Working Group. Moreover, 1 percent of the total number of disaster relief recipients - 21,000 recipients - received disaster payments in at least 11 of the 21 years and collected nearly 10 percent of the overall disaster funding from 1985 to 2005. About two-thirds of farmers (66 percent) for whom disaster assistance is routine live in just four states: Texas, South Dakota, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

Worse, a report last year by the Government Accountability Office suggests that areas in these states with the highest rates of conversion of grassland to intensive crop production tend to be the biggest recipients of disaster payments. If these lands were consistently profitable to grow crops on, then they would have been cultivated long ago. Routine disaster payments on top of other commodity subsidy payments remove the risk from growing crops on marginal, environmentally sensitive lands, creating an incentive to plow up what little is left of our native prairies. Moreover, these payments create a vicious cycle that wastes taxpayer dollars. Risky production decisions result in crop failures that are rewarded with federal payouts that lead farmers to bring more marginal land into production, resulting in more crop failures.

A permanent disaster fund will encourage farmers to count on financial support when they risk bringing more marginal land into production. Congress should not expect taxpayers to foot a $5.1 billion tab to finance a small number of farmers' increasingly risky and wasteful production decisions. Congress can and should continue to support farmers who are hurt by real and unpredictable disasters, but it does not need a permanent trust fund to do so.

In short, a permanent disaster fund would be a disaster for the environment and taxpayers.